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Transcript from Head Coach Claude Julien on 10/6

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Staff Writer
/ Boston Bruins

BOSTON BRUINS PRACTICE QUOTES

Tuesday, October 6 2015

BOSTON BRUINS HEAD COACH CLAUDE JULIEN POST PRACTICEPRESS CONFERENCEOn how it feels to be two days from the season opener and to have a set roster…It’s exciting, Joe. I think now we’re excited about getting this show on the road if we can put it this way. We’ve had some preseason games to evaluate, now we’ve you know we’ve made some decisions…some are still lingering right now. But other than that I think our group is excited as well you know. We seem to be feeling good about, you know, ourselves as a team. You know I think their intentions are really good but like we always say those things are great coming out of training camp. It’s how you handle adversities is what’s going to tell what this team’s all about. But I’ve got a lot of confidence in these guys to be honest with you from what I’ve seen in the last three plus weeks. They seem to be a really good group that I think will handle it well.

On what he thinks made Max Talbot expendable…It’s not so much that. It was just obviously there’s times you have to make some moves there to I guess keep certain things intact and the same thing why did we put Zdeno [Chara] on IR [injured reserve]? Well Zdeno [Chara]…putting on IR [injured reserve] gives us flexibility. Max [Talbot] being on waivers doesn’t mean he’s going down. We haven’t made any decisions on Max [Talbot] yet, as far as what’s going on. There’s always an opportunity. He could get claimed you know, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed actually that he doesn’t but you know he’s just on waivers for purposes of keeping the numbers where they should be at this time.

On what he saw from Max Talbot last season and so far in Training Camp…He’s a hard working guy. I think he makes a lot of things happen. Like you know he’s a good leader; he’s a good team player, you know. He’s very vocal in the room. He goes out on the ice and you know I mean he backs his words because he works extremely hard. And he’s got chances you know, he hasn’t scored a ton but the chances are there. So he’s definitely a real good energy guy that we like, you know. But there’s a lot of people in this camp that have been battling for spots that have brought different things that have made those decision hard. And even though they’ve made it hard it doesn’t mean that we made a final decision yet. So what we’ve done is bought ourselves some time here to make some decisions down the road.

On if Zdeno Chara is an option for opening night after practicing today…Well you know it’s a good sign to have him out there today. I think you know we continue to do what we call the daily evaluation of him. Let’s see how he feels tomorrow and after practicing with the team. We’ll continue to do that until we know that he’s really ready to go so. Right now I think it’s nice for everybody to see him out there with us and practicing so it’s his first practice in quite a while so you know hopefully he gains as much as he can for the time being.

On if he was doing everything in practice today or taking light contact…No it was his first day, it would be normal that it would be light contact. He got into traffic; he got into different things. But he wasn’t going to be out there you know throwing his weight around. And that’s his first day, which he’s told to be that way, you know. Last thing we need right now is a setback.

On what it came down to with the backup goalie decision…It’s a tough decision. I don’t think it came down to anything that we need to talk about here because both were good, you know. And it’s not fair to say “well, this guy here wasn’t as good as the other.” They were. One guys, you know obviously, we all know has a little bit more experience but they’re both good. And I think at one point…it doesn’t mean, again, this is carved in stone. Things could change. And as you know there’s often injuries during the season. So we’re kind of…in a way we’re fortunate to have more depth in that. And that includes, like I said before, [Malcolm] Subban and [Zane] McIntyre. So I feel good about the depth of our goaltending right now.

On where Jeremy Smith is…He’s here until noon and if he clears waiver at noon then he’ll be moving on.

On how much he stressed wanting a backup goaltender with NHL experience…I don’t think I stressed anything. I think it was…I would say it was a “we” decision on that. And it wasn’t just because of experience, you know. We looked at different things. You know at the end of the day we took that direction. And I’m saying this again: we had to make a decision and it could have gone either way, but we made that one based on how we felt. You know maybe it’s a slight, slight edge but even we can be wrong and maybe you do get to see Smitty [Jeremy Smith] back here again. So we’re not saying that this is it, this is what we’re going with for the whole season. We’re keeping our options open there as well.

On if experience helps for a backup goaltender…Well it does, Joe. But I think Smitty [Jeremy Smith] - his age and everything else - he’s got experience too. You know, and he’s a hardworking guy. He’s been splitting in Providence, you know. So he’s sat a fair amount as well. So I don’t think you know…maybe just the experience of being in the NHL is probably the only thing I would say about that. But I don’t think it was a… it had anything to do with the experience of him being on the bench a long time being able to come in and play because he’s done that before.

On if there will be three goaltenders in Providence…I don’t know. We haven’t made that decision yet. That decision obviously won’t be mine. That’ll be Sweens [Don Sweeney] and his group that’s going to make the decision which direction they want to go. So we’re not sure yet. All I’ve been told is at noon he will not be here with our team. So that was the message to me.

On drugs in the NHL and how concerned he is for players now that this seems to be a growing issue…Well, I hope it’s not a growing issue. I guess that’s what you say as a coach and all I can do right now is kind of look at my group here and see if there’s any issues. I haven’t seen any signs of any issues here. Doesn’t mean I’m 100 percent right but at some point, you know, you probably would notice certain things. And right now I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we continue to be a team that’s pretty clean. And I mean we get drug tested like anything else all the time and you know so our guys are so far, knock on wood, we haven’t had any issues.

On his reaction to the 41-game suspension of San Jose Sharks player Raffi Torres…No. You know to be honest with you I haven’t read all of it. I haven’t read any…I saw the title on the article but I haven’t read it. And I’ve been digging through mostly my own stuff here, but you can tell me about it.

On trying to get dirty hits out of the game and going for hits to the head…Well I think that goes for anybody, whether, you know. Obviously he’s got a history of those kind of hits, but you know I keep repeating the same thing. Whether it’s my player or another player. If we don’t want that in the game, then let’s not just go after guys that are on your team. Let’s clean up our own mess as well. And if everybody approaches it that way I think it’s going to solve the issues a lot quicker. And you know it’s…what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right? And we have a tendency sometimes to complain about the hits that are against your team and then once it happens to your group, well I think it wasn’t intentional…I think it was this and that. Listen - let’s take the hits to the head out of the game and let’s protect the individual. We’ve got enough issues with those head injuries.

On the suspension being as long as it is...Yeah repeat offender, you know, repeat offender. And I think that’s something that was clear to everybody that you know as repeat offenders it could escalate and that’s the way it should be. I’m supportive of those decisions 100 percent. We’ve had, you know, those in our team in the past and we’ve had to accept and say, “yup, that’s the way it is.” And let’s not be hypocritical about it.

On if he would have liked to test out the “coach’s challenge” rule during preseason…Well you know I think that one issue there - the goal on Tuukka [Rask] where you know they guy hit the glove - when I called the referee over we talked about it. I said, “Listen, if that was the regular season,” I said, “I probably would challenge that.” He says, “Yeah I don’t blame you for that.” And actually he came in and we looked at it after the game to clarify. Because I think they are trying to learn as much about those things as we are trying to learn about it. And I think, you know, what we’re going to have to be careful about is that sometimes it may look that way to you, but how it’s interpreted by the referees when they look at it might be a little different. But you know for the most part, between Toronto, the referees and everything else, very seldom now with those video reviews are you going to get it wrong. So in that case with Tuukka [Rask] I think it was unanimous when we looked at it together that we probably would have called that no goal. Now which was interesting because we were both trying to learn. Let’s look at it and let’s see what goalie interference is. Because there was a lot of - I don’t know if we’ve talked about this - but there was a lot of things that happened even the coaches meetings at the Draft where they showed clips and asked: “Is that a goal or no goal?” And it was split in half. So even coaches were split in half on those decisions. So it just goes to show you how difficult it can be to, and I’ll give you an example, if the goalie’s in his crease and all the sudden he sticks his glove out of his crease to catch the puck but they guy is going in front of the crease he’s not in the crease hits the gloves, is that interference or not? I bet you if I ask anybody here it’ll be probably a split decision as well. So there’s still some areas that you know it’s tough to judge and you have to accept what’s going to come out of it.

On if it’s less likely he’ll call a timeout if he has a guy who is out for two minutes in the second period and there’s icing…You know, that timeout now and when you look at the situation that the timeout was meant for it’s one of those situations where we as coaches decided that we felt it was just as important to use it for those icings. That’s not what it was meant for in the first place. But we made it that. So now it kind of comes back to us, like are you still willing to use that for an icing when there might be a goal scored later on in the game that you could dispute? But you used your timeout so you don’t have that challenge. So there’s a lot times we’re going to have to gamble. I would say from my perspective probably a lot of times I’m going to have to bite my bottom lip and hope that we can get that puck out and get a change versus using that timeout and losing that challenge. So this a…it’s called a challenge- I think it’s a challenge for us as well.